I’m not sure if it was the 4:30 am wakeup time, leaving my family in STL, the flights and late luggage or the fact that we’re still wrapping presents, but today hasn’t actually felt like Christmas to me! Maybe tomorrow, after lots of sleep, cocoa and Christmas music! In the meantime, I’ll leave you with our annual Christmas card collage. Thank you for reading Seakettle this year!

I don’t know about you, but I love thinking about, shopping for, and making gifts for Christmas. Even though there’s always (way, way) too much to do, I really look forward to this crazy time of year!

We gave out these beer bread kits a couple Christmases ago, inspired by a store-bought version. Just mix up the dry ingredients (which you’ll already have on hand), bottle them, attach the directions and give with a bottle of beer (or not). The bread is delicious and so easy for the recipient to make!

I’ve had great luck finding the right size bottles at thrift stores, but TJMaxx-type stores typically have an assortment, or you can buy bottles for $4 at IKEA.

Directions:
1. In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients. Using a funnel, gradually pour the ingredients into a bottle. Tap the bottle frequently, encouraging the mix to settle, until all ingredients fit. Seal.

2. Make tags with instructions for the recipient. For tags like mine, first print a pattern on the back of paper. (I used Elli’s striped gift wrap, but there are tons of free printables out there, including lots more on the Elli blog.) Then flip your paper over and print my tag template on the other side. Cut one out, punch a hole and tie it on!

These are easy gifts to customize, too — want to give a more substantial gift? Give the recipient their favorite six-pack. Traveling by plane and can’t bring liquids? Tie an interesting bottle opener around the neck of the dry ingredients. Whether you’re giving one mix or twenty, you can still make them personal — something that I absolutely love!

I have always loved this quote (always, as in, since it started popping up all over on t-shirts and tacky Pinterest inspirational images). And while I was most certainly not familiar with John Muir before moving to California, I’m now so grateful for all the work he did, especially in preserving one of the most beautiful places ever — Yosemite National Park.

This quote seemed perfect for my brother, a person rather uninterested in the outdoors who then moved to Portland (away from the bugs and oppressive humidity) and suddenly loved climbing mountain peaks.

Once I had a sanded piece of wood in hand, this project was incredibly easy. (And once I decided not to worry about boring things like straight lines.) I used an alphabet stamp set that I got several years ago at Michael’s for $1 and some ink I had on hand. Any basic stamping supplies will do.

I set the stamps on the wood to choose an approximate layout.

I often rubberband letters together when using my tiny stamps, and sometimes turn one backwards to serve as a blank spot when one of the letters is repeated (since I only have one of each letter to work with). It actually works better with words that are shorter than mountains (more like mount), and isn’t really necessary when doing something as free form as this project ended up being. Still, it’s something to keep in mind for projects that require more precision.

I finished the project with a sawtooth hanger hot-glued to the back. You can also see from the dark spot in the center that this wood hasn’t quite dried out, so it’s likely to crack a bit more along the way.

I intended to finish this gift for my brother while he still lived in Portland, but ended up being rather late (oops!) and he’s now across the country. Hopefully it’s a nice reminder of all those Pacific Northwest mountain adventures, and maybe even encouragement to travel west! (Come visit, Jason!)

Since the days I went door-to-door selling Girl Scout cookies (that miserable time when my shy self was pitted against my competitive, must-sell-the-most-in-my-troop self), I have loved Samoas Girl Scout cookies. (Or whatever you call them wherever you live. You know, the best ones, with the chocolate and caramel and toasted coconut.) So, when a couple back-to-back events called for baked goods, I decided to take what I loved in Samoas and combine it with my true dessert love—cheesecake—and make this cookie-inspired treat.

You should know by now that Greg is the cheesecake expert in our house. He knows how much I love them, so he mastered all the tricks for making them and hasn’t looked back. His own recipe for turtle cheesecake is quite possibly my favorite dessert of all time. This recipe is merely a modified version of his masterpiece. Thanks, Greg!

Though this recipe has many components and a long cooling time, it isn’t actually hard to make. Trust me—try this when your next off-season Girl Scout cookie craving hits. It’s amazing!

5. Add a pan (e.g., 13 x 9) of water on the bottom rack of the oven and leave at 350 degrees.

6. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 inch springform pan.

7. Mix melted butter with Oreo crumbs and press in the bottom of the springform pan and 1 1/2" up the sides, set aside.

8. In a double boiler, or a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, melt the caramels in the evaporated milk. Stir until smooth.

9. Mix 2 cups of toasted coconut in with the melted caramels and pour evenly over the Oreo crust.

10. In a bowl, combine the cheese, sugar, and vanilla and beat until smooth, scraping down the bowl several times.

11. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until smooth.

12. Pour the cheesecake batter over the layer of caramel and coconut.

13. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until barely set.

14. When barely set, turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside to cool as close to room temperature as possible in the oven.

15. Chill overnight (or at least 8 hours) in the refrigerator.

Coconut Topping
1. Heat the caramels, milk and salt in a double boiler, or in a small metal bowl or saucepan set over a larger saucepan of simmering water, until the caramels are fully melted.

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and combine 3/4 of the caramel with the remaining toasted coconut in a large bowl.

3. Spread the remaining 1/4 caramel over the top of the cooled cheesecake.

4. Spread the caramel-coconut mixture on top of the caramel.

Ganache Stripes
1. Bring 1/4 cup of heavy cream to a boil and remove from heat.

2. Stir in 3 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate until smooth.

3. Stir in 3 teaspoons of corn syrup.

4. Cool slightly.

Once the ganache has set enough to pipe, finish the cheesecake with lines of ganache topping. For evenly spaced lines, I set wooden skewers lightly on top of the coconut topping to act as guides. With a ganache-filled pastry bag, I piped lines of chocolate across the top. If you’re in a hurry, just drizzle the chocolate over the top—it will still be beautiful and delicious!

This project is from last fall, but it’s so perfectly summer. We designed and built these wooden sailboats with colorful paper sails to decorate the pool in the background of my sister-in-law’s nautical baby shower. Now, as we approach yet another hot and sunny weekend, swimming pools and boating are both on my mind!

The supplies were modest — old 2×4′s, branches trimmed from a backyard tree and leftover scrapbook paper — but the results were so sweet! Spread throughout the pool (with anchors fashioned from random metal objects), the dozen or so sailboats brought charm to the otherwise undecorated swimming pool. Now several of the boats decorate the shelves of our nephew’s nautical nursery!

Instructions
1. Make two angled cuts on the 2×4 to give it a sharp point on one end.

2. Barely cut off the remaining two corners of the 2×4 to form the back of boat.

3. If desired, round the cut corners using a sander.

4. Drill a hole 3/4 of an inch deep into the top of the 2×4 about a third of the way from the front of the boat. The hole should be just wider than the width of one of the branches.

5. Cut the scrapbook paper into a large triangle, 9 1/2 inches tall and 9 inches. We didn’t want the mast in the center of the sail so rather than make a symmetric triangle, we put the mast off-centered, about 3 inches from the front edge of the sail.

6. Cut one branch to be 9 3/4 inches long and the other 10 3/4 inches long.

7. Hot glue the branches to each side of the paper sail, with the excess wood sticking out below the bottom of the sail.

8. Put a little wood glue into the hole and insert the longer branch into the boat.

9. If you want to keep the boat from drifting, tie some fishing line to a heavy object and staple it (via staple gun) to the bottom of the boat. The weight will serve as an anchor and keep the boat from drifting too far.

Well, hello there! Fancy meeting me here, right? I’m sorry it has been so long! A lovely Australian company was holding my domain name hostage for a few weeks, and that was followed by several insanely busy weeks at work.

Meanwhile, Sprinkle Bakes posted a seriously beautiful collection of cupcake piping techniques, and I tried my hand at one when my friend Lisa came to visit! (Skip video to 2:05 to go directly to the ruffle technique, but I highly recommend watching the other techniques, as well!)

I love how cute these cupcakes turned out (even if not as gorgeous as Heather’s)! I didn’t have exactly the right tip (#104), and I chose to use leftover cream cheese frosting rather than buttercream. I don’t know about buttercream (I don’t love it, so it’s quite possible that I’ve never used it), but cream cheese frosting is SO finicky about temperature. Too cold = too hard and crackly, but too warm = shiny, gooey mess. And guess what I ran into while frosting on a 95 degree day?

So, my ruffles were a little soft around the edges — but they were obviously ruffles! (Except for the last two. The last two were blobs, with a hint of ruffling on the edge.) Hopefully the abundance of colorful sprinkles in the cake batter was enough to distract from a little melting!

In addition to the ruffled frosting, I wanted try my hand at making Funfetti from scratch (at least partially motivated by the fact that I had 5 different kinds of cake mix in my pantry and Funfetti wasn’t one of them). Honestly, though, just buy the cake mix. The sprinkles sank to the bottom, and the cake just wasn’t that interesting. Who wants to make something from scratch that tastes less good than the $1.50 version?

Greg and I made this cross as a baptism gift for our nephew James (since he couldn’t partake in the cross cookies). This is the Santiago cross, or cross of St. James. I love the interesting shape, but it was certainly my most difficult clay project to date!

I love Das air-dry clay, though I often forget to consider it for projects! I have made ornaments, gift tags and small dishes with the clay. While Das doesn’t feel like porcelain, without a personal kiln, I find it to be a great substitute. It dries white and firm (not plastic-y), and can be sanded (thank goodness) and painted (though I never have) after drying. It’s significantly lighter than a traditional clay piece, which can be nice for some applications, but also feels less elegant. Das takes 1-3 days to dry, and waiting for a fragile gift to hurry-up-and-dry-already can be stressful, so I’d recommend leaving yourself plenty of time.

1. Tear off a sheet of wax paper, and tape it to your counter or cutting board.

2. Pull off a chunk of clay. If you package is open or the clay seems dry for whatever reason, sprinkle water, a few drops at a time. It’s like bread dough — a little water can change it dramatically, so go easy.

3. Roll the clay out large enough for your cross and about 1/4 inch thick. The thicker it is, the slower it will dry.

4. Set your template on top of the clay and press lightly so it sticks.

5. Use an Xacto to cut around the edges of your shape. I found it helpful to have the Xacto almost completely upright, making little saw-like strokes, rather than slicing at the typical 45-degree angle.

6. After cutting the shape out completely, you can lift the template and stamp a monogram, phrase or pattern onto the surface. The impression won’t show up if the clay is too wet. Let it dry a few minutes, if that’s the case.

7. Use a few drops of water to smooth imperfections, like fingerprints and rough edges. It doesn’t have to be perfect, as you can sand it later.

8. Gently move your cross to a clean sheet of wax paper (I found that my wax paper was pretty damp. If yours isn’t, or you have plenty of drying time, you could leave it in place). A thin spatula can help move it.

9. Let clay dry completely. It looks grayish at first, but will brighten to white as it dries. Eventually, I usually flip the piece over to expose the back to the air, but you risk making faint impressions on the front if it isn’t completely dry and/or resting on a very smooth surface.

10. Use a fan, but only if necessary. Drying too quickly will cause the clay to crack, so resist the temptation to put the cross in the oven if you’re running out of time. We foolishly made this cross on Friday night (excuse the dark photos!) before a Sunday morning baptism, so we used a fan and space heater on it for several hours on Saturday. It was dry enough to sand by Saturday evening and wrap on Sunday morning.

11. Sand the edges of the cross to your desired smoothness. Wipe off the dust, and pat yourself on the back!

I had big plans for posting a tutorial last night on the braided Easter egg bread that I’m making for Sunday. But then we had friends over and attempted to decorate two dozen eggs. And then we had mojitos… and wine… and dessert (with some calzones and salad, too). And then I climbed into bed before 10 pm (by about 4 minutes), something that I rarely do without putting up a fight. So here we are, instead, with a post about a crazy-easy Easter dessert: Peep pops.

Maintaining my previous assertion that pops can make anything popular, I bring you Peep pops. Just buy the little marshmallow creatures in your favorite colors and add them to lollipop sticks!

To display the pops, an easy option is to put them in a low jar. If you have a bit more time, add floral foam to the bottom of a basket (or takeout container from the dollar store, in my case), and top with fake grass. A whole flock of Peep pops would look great in a colorful Easter basket!